Colorado ski areas invest in dining, chairs, snowmaking for 2013-14

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With two months left before snowmaking begins in earnest, resorts are racing to finish a flurry of upgrades for 2013-14. While the days of new lifts accessing new trails are winding down — only one resort is expanding ski terrain for next season — resorts are investing heavily in snowmaking, as well as lodging and dining facilities.

Dining

Arapahoe Basin dropped $1 million on a remodel of the 6th Alley Bar & Grill and a base-lodge expansion. Beaver Creek is preparing for the 2015 FIS World Alpine Ski Championships with a new 500-seat restaurant at Red Tail Camp. Steamboat's new 13,000-square-foot Four Points Lodge marks its most significant on-mountain improvement in 10 years. Loveland is adding its first on-mountain eatery at the remodeled Ptarmigan Roost Cabin.

Growing

This year, Breckenridge is the only Colorado resort getting bigger, with its hard-earned expansion onto its 12,300-foot Peak 6, the largest terrain addition for the country's busiest ski hill in the past decade. Peak 6 adds two new lifts accessing 400 acres of lift-served terrain and 143 acres of hike-to steeps.